We Are Still Cool. Thanks Dads.

Happy Smappy, Hanky Slanky

Yesterday we went to the river.

Day before yesterday I was being a baby about it. 

"I don't want to go to the river", I told my Mama. "I don't like to be on a boat. You can't walk around, you can't leave, you can't pee when you want to. Then we're going to a bar. If there's any place I want to eat and drink to excess, it's in a bar by the river."

"If it's beyond your comfort zone, you don't have to go" she said.

"It's for Hank, of course I will go."

        I am a forgetful girl, and a contrary girl. Sometimes I can be a very stubborn girl, but if there's one thing I should remember, it's to trust my brother.

My brother is a genius. He taught himself to read when he was three using the Playschool play desk. I only learned how to read when he stopped being so kind as to read to me. I was seven. He told me when I was eleven that I did not feel the opposite of love when I purported to hate my first-kiss boy, that disinterest was the opposite of love. He taught me the difference between 2-D and 3-D by holding his fist beneath my nose ("THIS is 3-D") when I was five or six. He let me stay ignorant when I thought that a mini skirt was named after Minnie Mouse, and when I thought I could run as fast as the wind. When I went out of my head at college in Sarasota he let me come to him in St.Pete, he took me to vintage shops, he let me walk around in leather and wood platforms I bought there, he bought me bloodthick island juice, and he let me sleep while he wrote my gender studies paper for me. And when he wanted to go to the river for his birthday, I didn't want to go, but I went anyway.

We docked at St. Marks and ate at the Riverside where we could tie up our boat and walk up the ramp. Mama watched me with a keen eye and pointed out the steamed vegetables on the menu. I was smelling the fish and the water, that delicious river stank, and I ordered the peel-and-eat shrimp because I wanted that swamp water in my gut, and I'm glad I did. Our waitress was inept and spacey with leather skin and her lips a violent slash, I wanted to be her for a moment, but I let it pass.

With our bellies full we were all hands on deck and the river looked the other way as we slipped onto her back bone. Shrimp in my mouth and all down my hands, river in my eyes and nose, and boat hum in my ears, I finally relaxed and let it all go.

It is the river and it is June. The jungle on either side of us and at bends up ahead was full-on green, fecund and breathing. Each waterpath away from the main stream gave us glimpses of whole other worlds, adventures of sleeping girls, pirates, and horrible screaming blood sucking spiders, it made my mind go wild while the river kept my heart a steady beat. We saw turtles, we saw birds, we saw a great goddamn boat, and when Daddy climbed the bow to pick a swamp magnolia he did not fall off.

The river is not tied up in knots, it is a loosening thing. I get so twisted in my head sometimes, my face and stomach pinched, trying to work out all the end results so I won't be caught unawares. The slowly slip and glide of the water worked it's magic on me and reminded me that I am just an animal, made to smell and feel and prick up my ears. I felt no pain. We were in paradise all around, and when Daddy took the boat very fast we were flying through it. At one point I even went swimming.

 And to think I didn't want to go! Sometimes I think I am quite stupid without my brother. He can make me do anything, thank god. 

This week is his birthday, starting yesterday. Hank gets a whole week of birthdays, just because he can. I'm going to dredge up my old self. I'm going to rabble rouse around him. I'm going to punch him and kick him. I'm going to hug him on the neck. Maybe I will get him a goat cart for his birthday! (just kidding) (not kidding) (just kidding) Maybe I will get him nothing! He will love me anyway! 

You are a very fine thing, you dastard, you bastard. You may not be thoughtful sometimes, but you are the knowingest man I ever met. Happy Fucking Birthday! I love you till the river falls off the earth, and straight on till morning.

p.s.

     If you want to see pictures, go over to my blog list and click on Bless Our Hearts. (Thanks for having our boy, Mama.)

I hope you think I'm cute, because I'm going to talk about my kitten now.

My kitten is like a robot shark. One time, in a bar (Waterworks, for all you Tallatrashy Lackeys) I conducted a survey to prove my then boyfriend wrong, with resounding success. The survey was made up of only one question: "Robot Shark- Made to bite?" The only answer that makes any sense is "Yes". People who try to question this are assholes. What, a robot shark would be made to sneak into enemy HQ? I think not. Scare children? Perhaps, but children are more easily scared than making an entire GIANT ROBOT SHARK would warrant. Make a movie? Yes, but the role would probably be advertised like this: Wanted for movie/ One Giant Robot Shark/ Made to Bite.

         I believe my kitten is made to bite. Her claws are only more razor sharp teeth on the end of her paws. It is not fair for a cute little animal, one that many people seem to think is appropriate to have in the home, has so many teeth in so many places. 

She especially likes to bite my toes and ankles, but perhaps that is just because they are generally down on her level and therefore easy access. I have become more adept at leaping and tucking. She gallomps after me and I trot like a Lipizzaner around the tiny apartment. Making coffee has become an entire Riverdance unto itself.

My ass also, she likes to bite. Because I am not tall and I like to have my feet on the floor I tend to perch on the edge of everything I sit on, including the toilet. I had no idea there was so much space behind me back there, enough space for a kitten to jump up, dance around, and bite me on the ass. I think she sees my ass as the enemy because I allow it to play with the toilet paper and she can not.

When I tell my family about this they smile indulgently and say, "Oh, that is what kittens do!" as if this makes it all okay. But I am no fool, I remember Jagger with his horrible mouth teeth and his terrible feet teeth and he was a grown cat and he was a smart cat and before he ran off with Mama's diamond on the day of the Bruce Springsteen concert, his joy in life was to make us cry over our morning breakfast cereal. I also know Baggy, who is the Meanest Cat in the World, who lives with Down Town Guy, and who makes me curse and spit and bleed.

My kitten is becoming not-a-kitten. She eats like a dog and is getting those chunkamonk rolling shoulders of a lion, even if she still has rabbit back feet. We're going to have to come to some sort of a truce as we live here alone with only a mannequin head named Leto and a ceramic squirrel for housemates. My God! She is biting me right now! If I were not such a pussy myself, I'd bite her back.

Monday Song

It's 9:02 and overcast

the laundry's in

the kitten's bad

when no sun comes

don't feel like day

don't feel like day

my bones a ache

and I got lists

and bills to pay

the floors need sweep

the tub needs scrub

the kitten knocks a pitcher down

a break a plate

a break a bone

a brush the hair

a clean window

my feet too hurt

no walk today

but clean them floors 

a heave-ho-hey!

make soup a pot

pick beans from stones

and lie like dead

when all it's done.